Brooklyn Girls
by amythis
Summary: How Frankie got her unlikely best friends.


Even though the three of us have so much in common, we turned out very differently. We're all Brooklyn girls, Pitkin Avenue specifically. Italian-American Catholics, second or third generation.

Gina Bonafetti reacted to this environment by becoming as traditional as our mothers. I, Francesca Candino, was also a "nice girl," but a feminist, too, which caused conflicts not just within my family but within my psyche. Tanya Stromball is what we call "a nice bad girl," that is she's a slut (as she'll tell you herself), but she's not a bitch, like her former best friend Teresa of Marty's Melody Room.

The three of us weren't friends in the old days, although we grew up together. Well, Gina was a little girl when Tanya and I were in high school, but we all knew each other of course. And we had something else in common, one Anthony Morton Micelli. (You get to know a guy's middle name really quickly when his father, grandfather, the cops, the teachers, the nuns, the priests, and of course Mrs. Rossini are yelling it a lot.)

Tanya is the only one of us who dated him twenty-something years ago. Gina had a little girl's crush on him, but she had to wait till she'd filled out and let her hair out of pigtails.

I was the right age but he was too macho for me, even if we didn't know the term "macho" in the '60s. (Well, the Latinos in the next neighborhood would use the word sometimes, but never with the negative connotations I learned in my consciousness-raising group a few years later.) I just knew Tony Micelli was a cocky jock who thought every girl would fall at his feet. Not that there wasn't a lot of truth in that thought. But I didn't want to be just another of Tony's girls, like the Benedetti twins, or Teresa.

As for Tanya, she and Tony were "T &amp; T," explosive, with the kind of lust our elders warned us about. She was his first and is still proud of that.

I was, so far, his last, and I'm not so proud of that. I'm not ashamed that I slept with him, but that I tried to rush him into marriage right after.

He had married young, to another neighborhood girl, Marie Milano. Marie and I were pretty good friends, not enough for me to be a bridesmaid, but I was at the wedding. She was old-fashioned like Gina, without the worshipful attitude. She didn't wait hand and foot on Tony, but she took care of him. She adored him, but he adored her, too. When Mrs. Rossini told me about her early death, and how devoted Tony was to their little girl, I started to think better of him. But by then I was launched on my law career and I wasn't looking to get married, let alone to be a stepmother, then.

Gina wouldn't have minded. She loves kids and would've happily given Samantha a bunch of little brothers and sisters.

As for Tanya, I can hear her raspy voice saying, "Well, I woulda liked the conceptions." She's still happily single, and all she wanted Tony for was sex and laughs. That suited him when he was a teenager, and again when he was newly widowed. But then he moved to Connecticut and everything changed.

There's something else that Tanya, Gina, and I have in common, and it's sitting on Mrs. Rossini's fire escape having a sunset picnic.

"I don't get it, you guys," Tanya says, shaking her head. "What's the appeal? I mean, yeah, she's got all that long, thick, blonde hair, but she don't know how to manage it. And she's skinny with no curves."

"She has nice legs," Gina says, wanting to be fair.

"They're just long 'cause she's tall."

"Angela has upper-class looks," I say, having met a lot of girls like Angela in college and now sometimes in the courtroom. "I mean, not like me, working your way up, but silver-spoon looks. She knows how to make the most of what she has and she's very stylish."

"She's still a cold fish," Tanya says. "I bet they still ain't doin' it."

"Well, she is his boss," Gina says.

"That wouldn't have stopped the Tony Micelli I knew. Any of us knew."

She makes it sound like Tony is ancient history for us. In fact, it's been less than four years since Gina was willing to give him her "most precious gift" in order to become engaged to him. As she told us later, "But he couldn't. I mean, he could, but he wouldn't."

It's less than three years since Tanya realized that he might still fool around with her, but his mind was someplace else. "And yeah, I mostly wanted his body, that great body, but I like a guy to be thinkin' of me when we're doin' it."

And it's a little over two years since Tony rejected my proposal. And, yes, I guess I was thinking like Gina, even though I wasn't a virgin. I went to bed with him, but then instead of waiting for him to pop the question, I popped it. And, yes, he has a great body, and the sex was great. But I also was drawn to his intelligence, his sense of humor, his sensitivity and, OK, his housekeeping. (Good girl or not, I was never the housewife type, like Gina, God bless her.)

"Do you think he's in love with her?" Gina asks.

Tanya shrugs. "I think he's hot for her. And he likes her. But love? What do I know about love?"

"I think even he doesn't know," I say. "But look at them."

We can't hear them from across the street with Tanya's window closed, but we can see them as we peek through the curtains. They're laughing and flirting and, if not feeding each other, at least handing each other food.

"Frankie," Gina asks, "what did he say to you the last time you saw him? About her I mean."

"I asked why he didn't want to get married, and I asked if it was because of Angela. And he said, 'Angela? What has she got to do with this?' "

Tanya snickers. "Jesus, he's in denial!"

Gina and I both nod.

"Well, I kind of feel sorry him," I say.

Tanya snickers again. "Yeah, he looks miserable, don't he?" She shakes her head. "From what I can piece together from what Tiny and Philly and everybody say, he ain't been laid since you, Frankie."

I blush a little.

"But he seems to be thrivin' on sexual tension. So, yeah, Connecticut has changed our boy."

"Well, maybe he'll find the right girl someday," Gina says a little wistfully. "Or that advertising lady will wake up to what a treasure she's got right in her house."

"Yeah," I say quietly. Angela wouldn't be a bad match for him, different as they are. After all, Gina and Tanya are so different from me, and they've become my best friends in the past couple years, understanding each other in a way that Teresa and the Benedetti twins and the others don't.

"Oof!" Gina cries, putting her hand on her stomach.

"Is he kickin' again?" Tanya asks, not at all enviously.

"Yeah, I think this one is going to be a football player."  
"You said that about your daughters, too," Tanya reminds her.

"Well, they could be," I say.

My friends roll their eyes at what they still call "women's libber talk."

Then Gina says, "I'd better get home. Giovanni's gonna be home from bowling soon and he'll want supper."

We hug her goodbye and then after she leaves, Tanya says, "I'm worried about that girl."

I sigh. "I know. I don't think she loves Giovanni."

She shrugs. "Ay, she likes him OK. And he's a good provider and all that stuff she wanted, even if he's not as fun as Tony. But then she has no sense of humor, so she don't care."

I shake my head. Tanya may not be a bitch like Teresa, but she can be tactless. "Why are you worried about her?"

"Three pregnancies in a row, that ain't good."

"I know. But that was what she always wanted, lots of kids."

"Yeah, but look what it's doin' to her hair!"

I laugh.

"Speaking of, you're due for another cut and style."

I nod. "Why do you think I still visit the old neighborhood?"

"Maybe to find another Tony Micelli?"

"Unfortunately, there aren't enough of those to go around."  
"Yeah, tell me about it. And that one's being wasted on her!"

I take another peek. "I don't know. Maybe he's the one who's afraid to make a move."

She looks, too. "Yeah, but why?"  
I shrug. "Marie?"

"Yeah, maybe. Or he thinks he's not good enough for Angela 'cause she's rich."

"Maybe." Mrs. Rossini told me of Tony's enrollment in college, but he plans to become a teacher, so he never will make as much money as Angela.

"Anyway, that's their problem and we've done enough spyin'. You wanna come down to the salon? I've got this new assistant you gotta meet."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, he's gorgeous!"  
"You have a male assistant?"

"Ay, you and Tony ain't the only ones who 'defy traditional gender roles.' But Al is 100% straight."

"How do you know?"

"I have my ways."

"Tanya, you're so bad!"

"I know," she says proudly. "And this guy, he's only 18 or 19, but he's got experience. He reminds me a little of Tony twenty years ago, only not smart or charming. He's ain't got no tact."

I shake my head again. "Tanya."

"You know what he said to me the first night?"

"What?" I can't help asking. I've missed "my girls" so much and it's nice to gossip about someone besides Tony and his boss.

"He said, 'For an older broad, you're really built!' "

We laugh together. Then we take one last peek out the curtains and see Tony and Angela gazing out at Brooklyn with dreamy expressions, like they're on the balcony of a beach hotel in the French Riviera, or Hawaii.

"Idioti," she mutters and I nod. Then we go downstairs so Al can do my hair.


End file.
